Africa Trip Updates - Introduction

This is the introductory issue of my trip updates after spending 35days at Eastern and Southern Africa. During the short five weeks, I collected passport stamps at Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Lesotho. The trip to the second largest continent was incredible! I am glad the getaway was at a place where most Asian, more specifically me has little knowledge about.

I would divide the updates to six issues, specifically targeting the area I explored. They would be Kenya, Tanzania, Kruger National Park (South Africa), Durban (South Africa), Drakensberg (South Africa and Lesotho) and Cape Town (South Africa).

Africa, this continent probably contains details of the beginning of all mankind. The earliest “proto-humans” were the “australopithecines” (literally “Southern Apes”). Some of the first human-like fossils are found in this massive piece of land. To cut the geography lesson short… I shall skip to the stage of human which is probably very important for the development of modern mankind. The Homo erectus (human that can stand in an upright manner) was than transited into the more modern mankind, homo sapiens, and finally our type.

Wanna learn more? Check this out…
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_1.htm
http://www.northave.org/MGManual/Earlyman/Eman1.htm
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/hufossil.html

Why was Homo erectus an important phase? It is important, as the brain is close to the size of modern mankind and they are able to walk better with both legs. This gives human the ability to make and use tools. I would love to impart this quote from my beloved 1WO Simon Kang to many people especially soldiers and a friend Linda.
“Keep your hands free U need to use them for fighting (holding Ur weapon/ice axe).”

“Our Army” always empathise the concept of “thinking soldiers”. Thinking must be very important? But if one doesn’t execute what he thinks, it would have been pretty useless. Then one day, one of these “people” must have thought we should document our thoughts? Language and transcript began. Anyway, there was an interest National Geographic issue (April 2005) on another kind of Homo erectus discovered at Flores.

Flores is an island next to Lombok, my next destination, while Bali and Java are located at East of Lombok. To make the Geography lesson more simple, Java is an island where our important neighbour Indonesia’s capital is located. But the size of these human are smaller in term of size than their “cousin” at Africa. Many questions were posed, like how did these people sail to Flores?

Wanna learn more? Check this out…
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/index.html

I think I have kinda developed a writing style for all the E-mails updates. I thought Lonely Planet has been of great influence for I love to talk a little about History and Geography. These are the important components that contribute to culture. Unlike most news, books, magazine or internet, they may exaggerate the cost of living and danger level slightly. I thought this is probably very important for media holds social responsibilities to the places they reported. I would prefer to downplay certain issues. Please take note, the rest of the six issues only reflect my personal thoughts.

I would try to put in more names and place where I got the info from. Probably, I need to let my faithful readers where these facts are quoted. As I am not very smart, I am very glad I am surrounded with intelligent people like U. Special thanks to my favourite National Geog and Discovery Channels.

Kia-Ora!
Chee Meng
12th Sep 05